


Withdrawl

by Felinafullstop



Series: Transformers Prime: Domestic Days saga [1]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 13:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3693779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Felinafullstop/pseuds/Felinafullstop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Takes place after PRIMED and is post the episode: Stronger, Faster</p><p>established Ratchet/Prime</p><p>mentioned Arcee/Cliffjumper</p><p>This is one of my 30 minute writing tests, this just happened to be one I wanted to post.</p><p>Jack has questions about Ratchet, about the things he's seen around the base, what's going on? and does Ratchet have answers for him?</p>
    </blockquote>





	Withdrawl

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after PRIMED and is post the episode: Stronger, Faster
> 
> established Ratchet/Prime
> 
> mentioned Arcee/Cliffjumper
> 
> This is one of my 30 minute writing tests, this just happened to be one I wanted to post.
> 
> Jack has questions about Ratchet, about the things he's seen around the base, what's going on? and does Ratchet have answers for him?

Transformers Prime:

Withdrawal

 

* * *

His hand rested over his optics and he shook his head again. After recharge there was still a fog in his mind. It was hard to focus early on, but he was dealing with it as best he could. The addiction to the Synth-En was the catalyst for his suffering. Though he was alright, there were lasting repercussions, days after his body had began to quake, he'd become addicted, and so had to start regular small injections of the compound. He began changing it's structure, and lessoning the doses as he went to try to wean himself off the dangerous Synthetic Energon.

Reaching to his left Ratchet pulled the small syringe towards himself. Pressing it to his main line connection in his forearm he injected it slowly. His optics flashed softly and he sighed calming down. Resting his head back against the bulkhead behind him; he let out a soft groan. The symptoms of this withdrawal stage were hurting him, he went as long as he could before each injection, and would lesson the dose each time until he would be free of the blasted chemical in his system.

"Still coming down?" The voice broke his thoughts. "How many more doses till you're free of it?"

"I'm not sure." Ratchet replied to the voice as his head turned taking in Jack standing over the edge of the balcony above him. "I can't just flush it out of my system, it doesn't work that way, I have to come down slowly."

"I can understand that." Jack said sitting down. "That's how people who smoke do it I suppose when they're trying to quit." Jack shrugged "Though this is more like heroine I suppose."

Ratchet did a quick internet search and nodded slowly. "Yes a very strong addiction." He reached up touching his helm again.

"How's Optimus taking all this?" Jack raised his brow.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Ratchet shook his head pressing up to stand turning to the boy who looked at him expectantly. "He's not speaking to me at the moment."

"I know. That's why you've been sleeping in here." Jack said folding his arms over the catwalk railing. "I haven't seen you all go into that room of yours in the back of the silo once this week."

"Recharging…" Ratchet clarified for the boy. "The complexities between Optimus and myself, have nothing to do with my encounter with Synth-En." Ratchet looked down at the syringe in his palm and folded his fingers around it. He lied.

"What does it have to do with?" Jack shrugged. "Look you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but Optimus is in a foul mood lately, and you've been too. I know there's something…" Jack's hands freed and he wiggled them up and down alternately. "You know, between you two…"

"Yes, but our race is much different from yours; you wouldn't understand." Jack frowned at the response and shook his head. Ratchet turned away from him.

"Enlighten me…."

Ratchet turned meeting the boys gaze. "Enlighten you? The social standards by which our race operates is not the standard for your race, and most of your race would frown upon our social standards." Ratchet balked a laugh. He observed the boy for a long moment and finally he leaned back on his console. "Fine." He shifted forward to a crate and sat down. "Arcee…"

"What's she got to do with this?" Jack blinked and looked more confused that ever.

"What is her gender, if you were to call it that?" Ratchet asked with a hint of amusement to his voice.

"Arcee is a girl. Female." Jack shrugged "So what?"

Ratchet nodded "What if I were to tell you that the ratio of Females to Males on our planet was very low?" He said slowly. "The ratio of Females to Males at this base is so high compared to that of Cybertron in its days before the war."

Jack laughed "What are you saying like one woman to every like five guys or so?"

"I'm saying like one female to every two hundred of our Males." Ratchet stated flatly. "Females are rare and highly prized as mates."

Jack's eyes became large blank orbs. "But…"

"Our species is born in the depths of Cybertron given life by the All Spark." Ratchet said slowly. "We can reproduce on our own, but there have been very few cases of it being successful, and usually the females die." Ratchet shook his head this way and that. "It's not ….advised that we procreate the 'old fashioned way' as it were, at least with the females." He continued. "Most of us keep healthy romantic relations with someone….we bond to them."

"Like marriage?" Jack smirked. "But it doesn't have to be to a female?"

"Something similar, though after the bond there's no divorcing what you have." He said slowly. "And we don't have to be one gender or the other to reproduce, but a female does have a higher rate of producing another female."

"So you and Prime…" Jack blinked "You're bonded like this? You could make another life if you wanted to?" Jack was trying to process that in his mind, but the image of Optimus or Ratchet impregnated like a human woman came to his mind and he tried to scrub it out.

Ratchet gave a slow nod. "Once every few hundred years or so we need time apart from one another but we are together as it were." Ratchet smiled "If Optimus and I wished we could create life than yes we could. Though neither of us feels that in the midst of war it's a wise idea. It's completely illogical."

"That's what you said about us being here." Jack frowned.

"I was wrong about that I admit." Ratchet sighs "I only wish for your safety."

"I understand that too. But back to Optimus he calls you old friend." Jack said slowly "He isn't affectionate with you not really, I only ever see you two vanish into your room, well until lately when I found you were sleep- er …recharging in here."

"Yes that is true, but Optimus keeps his emotions in check, we've had that conversation before." Ratchet said slowly folding his arms over his chest. Jack shrugged that was true the 'emotions in check' conversation had been given many times, in the form of a lecture from Optimus himself. "He's not angry at me. I'm choosing to sleep in here until I am broken of my …addiction." Ratchet gave him a blank stare, he wasn't about to deny what he was medically going through, not anymore. The lie was harder to keep than the unbidden truth. Part of it was shame, he just couldn't face Optimus while he was in recovery.

"So it is the Energon… but why?" Jack said slowly. "I mean why stay away?"

"Because I've still got it in my system as I'm coming down off of it, and I wouldn't wish that on Optimus." He said with a soft sigh. "If we were to Data-merge…he could possibly, theoretically…it could transfer." He finalized simply. "I couldn't bare the thought of him going through this, I was a mess when he had Cybonic-plague." Jack could see how hard that admission was to make, it was a bash at the Medic's stability, and pride.

"Wait …data-merge? Oh God…oh I didn't need to know you were all capable of that!" Jack looked away. "Don't let Raph or Miko know."

"They know of your races reproduction, it's not so bad." Ratchet laughed. "The ways of your people are nothing to be ashamed of." Ratchet considered Jack's blank stare. "Well it's good that you know, we are beings after all, we suffer pain, and we enjoy pleasure as much as your race does. The data-merges are healthy they keep our bond in check." Ratchet said slowly. "Keeps it level so that I can feel Optimus and he can feel me."

"So what about Arcee…I mean Cliffjumper is dead."

"Yes and that is unfortunate. I've added a few code buffers to her frame to help her recharge without the ongoing nightmares, but they still plague her."

"Yeah she says his name in her sleep." Jack murmured softly and there was hurt in his eyes. "I wish I could do more for her."

"We all do Jack," Ratchet smiled at him knowing how strongly the boy felt for her. "And your concern is admirable; her pains will heal with time."

"Were they bonded?" It was a scared sort of question on the crest of a breath.

"No, they hadn't taken that step." Ratchet stood thoughtful as he smirked at something, a memory. His face slackened and he shook his head. "She mourns the loss of that in her own way, the loss of what could have been." Turning the medic let his head rest back and it rolled from one shoulder to the other and he opened his eyes taking in a deep vent.

"Feeling better?" Jack stood up.

"Much." Ratchet smiled and walked up to his console and pressed a few buttons as Jack walked around to the side of the catwalk. "Are there any other questions I might answer for you?"

"You said once Optimus use to be more like me…"

Ratchet smiled and nodded. "That much it true, though it is not out of the realm of possibility that he might return to how he once was again." Ratchet nodded. "When he became Prime it changed our Dynamic too."

"How did you take it?" Jack said.

"I was proud at first, and then when I saw that it, this title, was what lead us into this war. I knew then that we couldn't be as we were; carefree and naive."

"So you stayed with him?" Jack asked coming up to his own station clicking in his log-ins.

"Of course we'd been together only a short time, fifty of your earth years." Ratchet said slowly as if that were the only answer. "We were bonded, but no one knew that at the time. He appointed me medic of his second wave team. While he was in the first wave team."

"Why weren't you both on the same team like you are now?" Jack pulled up some pictures from his files and began to sift through them idly while they spoke.

"Because of emotional compromise, it took a long time for Optimus to steel himself to the point he's at now, and if I were to be captured, or worse him." The medic broke from his console to look down. "They could use either of us against the other." Ratchet replied. "Though that is still the case now, our bond has matured and we know what to do and say in such an event."

"Because you can feel what he feels? That's why it's dangerous?"

"And vice versa." That shocked Jack a bit but he couldn't say it was not an unexpected answer. "Now our numbers are too small once we got down to just the few of us he called me to his side, and I could never tell him no." Ratchet let out a long sigh.

"You tell him no constantly." Jack laughed.

"Not about that I couldn't." Ratchet smiled.

"That's why you went ballistic when he got Cybonic plague." Jack smiled. "And when you got on the …Synthetic Energon." he motioned to the medic referring to the Synth-En. "Prime was so worried I've never seen him fumble so much when he was hooking the pump up to your body with Arcee."

Ratchet looked down slowly. "Yes." His optics darted around the floor before rising up to look at the screen. "I know..."

"So-" Jack was about to ask another question but a shadow and a voice stopped him.

"Ratchet." Optimus' voice broke their conversation. Jack looked up meeting Prime's gaze slowly.

"Optimus." Ratchet sounded almost surprised. "I felt you in the hallway but thought you were going back to your room." The medic turned fully to face the Prime, his facial expressions a mix of concern and question.

"Our room." Optimus stated slowly. The red and blue semi made his way casually into the laboratory. Ratchet looked to Jack and raised his brow.

"You will have to excuse us Jack, we need to speak. I will finish our conversation at my soonest convieniance."

"I'll um go see what Miko and Bulkhead are up to…thanks for the talk Ratchet." Jack turned after logging off of his terminal and turned down the stairs and made his way out of the room. Optimus watched the boy leave down the main corridor.

It was shocking how Ratchet felt at this moment. He looked up to meet prime's optics and then smirked. "What can I do for you Optimus?"

Jack looked back to see the two talking, though he was too far away to hear. Ratchet turned showing Optimus two dimensional scans of his body. Showing the progression of the Synth-En in the medic as it was being lowered and lessoned. Optimus appeared to nod in approval and put a hand on the medic's shoulder.

Turning Jack made his way out of the lab corridor and down the hall. Jack would note later on that night; that the medical laboratory was empty. All was back to normal, at least he hoped, if only for the medic's sake.

* * *

The End


End file.
